Poetic Bloomings (a newer prompt site – check it out!) asked for poems using the most irresistible prompt: “There’s a moon out tonight.” Aaaaaah. Amy
La Bella Luna
Grab a jacket and take my hand, darlin’.
Tonight, Monona’s lakeside is calling out to us.
La bella luna want to bathe all lovers
in beams of reflected light.
Here by the shore, slight chill of the autumn to come,
we’ll stroll, serenaded by so many crickets
and the soft paddle of ducks, looking for a late-night snack.
Though full-faced Old Man looms above, silverfoiled and shining,
the lightning bugs are not overwhelmed.
Blinking gold, ruby, emerald… just out of reach,
yet so near, teasing us, same as they did
when we were kids lying in field of wild grasses.
City lights are low, revealing buckets of stars
spilled in horoscope formations.
We needn’t prove our love beneath this panorama.
We are no longer teenagers, needing it now, now.
The silver moon lingers in streaks of our hair
as we walk and whisper, my hand in your jacket,
you arm slung around my shoulder as we make our way home.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
DISCLAIMER: Actually, we live near the shore of Lake Mendota; Monona is to the north of our skinny stretch of the East Side of Madison, WI. I felt the name “Monona” was a bit more poetic. Apologies to all Tenney Park neighbors!
The Big Change
How to explain the changes ahead of me.
First, Mom needed gin, just a snort
to abort the mortification of
the dreaded subject at hand: Sex.
On a page in her steno notebook,
she drew crude diagrams:
Ovaries, tubes, uterus – utilitarian scrawls,
later to be thrown away in disgust.
“The egg starts in here,” pen on ovary,
“travels down through here,”
tracing Fallopian Lane,
“and ends up here. Once a month.”
Another jigger of gin for courage.
“If the egg gets fertilized, it stays here
and becomes a baby. If not,”
siiiiiiigh, “you bleed and need some equipment.”
She pulled out the mysterious
blue box, used heretofore only by
Mom and my big sisters. Removing
napkin and belt, she trussed me up.
That was the extent of Sex Ed with Mom:
There were eggs (aren’t eggs big?).
There were tubes and a place
you might make a baby (is fertilization about peat moss?)
Later I found out the good stuff…
recalling Mae West’s immortal wisdom:
“No man ever loved me
the way I love myself!”
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Poetic Bloomings, a new site – check it out! Theirbeing Change. Also at Poets United, the poetry collective.
Poetic Bloomings, a new and interesting site, wanted poems about “lost and found.” Then Brenda’s Sunday Whirl gave me words that culminated in the poem below (those prompt words are in bold). Give these new sites a whirl yourselves! And, of course, I’m on the right sidebar at Poets United! Peace, Amy
Lost in the Weeds
She is lost in the weeds.
She’s good wheat, but what sprouts near her
possess voices that pierce and keen.
No matter how strong her fortress,
an unfamiliar, frightening force
rattles the bars of her gate.
She needs an image to cling to,
wholly holy, distinctly divine.
A steadfast vision beyond this
jangling jungle of fear becomes clear.
She shakes off the weeds, uproots them,
and splinters the yoke of despair.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The Greatest Aim of Humankind (an acrostic)
Pursue the beating of swords into ploughshares
Etch onto windowpanes, “The time has come”
Aiming to embrace all peoples as one family
Chanting, not dogma, but “Love,” in many tongues
Everyone will cry out, “Enough of war, time to live!”
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For a new site, Poetic Bloomings, to the prompt “a goal-oriented poem.” Please check out Marie and Walt’s new prompt site – I think you’ll love their pace, their vibe. This is also, as always, posted to my oasis from all chaos, Poets United.
Peace, Amy
This is my first post for Poetic Bloomings, begun as a joint venture by Marie Elena and Walt, two of the first poets I met at Poetic Asides. Their story is unique in that they have never actually met – but collaborate often. They are seeking poems of beauty and goodness; they post prompts. They are accentuating the positive, so I’m probably the last person they will expect to see, LOL. Peace, Amy
Deer One
She drifts blithely through the trees
just beyond our parking lot.
She is the only, lonely deer of Tenney Park,
situated between apartment complexes which
must seem to her monoliths inhabited by aliens.
I call her Deer One.
Neighbor Lynne, soft spot for all living things,
feeds her birdseed, her snack of choice.
I know they say we should not encourage species
to live where they should not be, but frankly:
She was here first. We built around her habitat.
She is a Native American.
The other day, I spied Deer One
and she spied me.
We froze in one of those moments of
curiosity (mixed with dread on her part, perhaps).
I backed into my apartment and retrieved
the ripest apple I could find and,
gently,
rolled it across the parking lot.
It skipped the curb, landing at her feet.
I could swear she smiled at me!
I went to my car, humming, “When I See An Elephant Fly.”
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 